


A letter long overdue

by zinjadu



Series: In a house on a hill by the sea [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Letters, M/M, fathers and sons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 20:17:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17311175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: On the day of Kieran's wedding, he finds a letter written by his father many years ago.  A moment between father and son.  Takes place many years after the finale ofThe Long Way Homewhere the most unconventional family dynamic in Thedas comes to be.





	A letter long overdue

_Kieran,_

_... I’ve been staring at the page for a little while, trying to figure out what to write. You’re outside with Cait right now, helping her train the pups. Last night your mother left you with us._

_It wasn’t easy for you to watch her go, I know. I know what it is to be left in an unfamiliar place, to maybe feel like you’ve been left behind. To be in a place where you don’t know how to fit, or if you ever will fit. That feeling, I hope you don’t feel it for long. I hope… I hope we can give you a good home here. I know we’re going to try, I’m going to try…_

_I remember when I first saw you, at Skyhold. You were so quiet, so polite, studying away. ~~I almost couldn’t believe Morrigan was your mother.~~  I couldn’t help but be proud of you, just a little right then. I know that sounds strange. Probably is, but… well, there’s no easy way to say this. If you haven’t figured it out by the time you read this, Kieran, I’m… I’m your father._

_It’s… complicated, but the why isn’t important. I saw you, and I knew how much I had missed of you. But now you’re here, with us, and I hope I’ve been a good father to you, even if you never knew. I hope that you didn’t find village life so bad, after Val Royeaux, I hope that you made friends, that you’ve been happy. And if I’ve been any part of you having had a good life, then that’s more than I could have asked for._

_~~love, your da~~ _

_\--A_

It was only signed with his initial, but Kieran could just make out something underneath the scratch lines could just barely be read.  _Love_. Even then, he’d signed it with love. All those years ago, barely knowing each other, his father had loved him. He could remember being nervous, like Da had said, not knowing if he would fit in, if he ever could in the little village of Devon-by-Sea.

“Hey, what’re you doing? If you don’t get out there soon, your mother and  _mamae_  both are going to come in here, and trust me, you do not want that,” Da said, breaking into Kieran’s years distant thoughts.

“Sorry, Da,” he replied automatically, folding the letter back up and palming it. He snatched his coat off the bed, the bed in the spare room, the one that had been built when  _Mamae_  had been pregnant with Rhiannon. But the letter nagged at him as he adjusted his coat, Da making sure it lay right. “Da… did you leave that letter for me to find?”

“Letter?” Da asked.  He turned Kieran around and giving him another inspection, smoothing back his black hair. I didn’t stick up like Da’s, and was black like Mother’s, but he thought it was fine the way it was.

“The letter you wrote me… just after I came here."  At the mention of the later, a light of memory flickered in his father’s hazel eyes. The same eyes Kieran had.

“Ah, that letter,” Da said softly, quietly, the memory of those days plain on his face. “Your  _mamae_  suggested I write that, actually. Had so much I wanted to say to you, in those days. Glad I got to say them all to you myself. Eventually.” He huffed, part in amusement, part in remembrance of a time when they had danced around the truth, a truth that turned out to be the greatest gift of his young life. Not a family lost, but a family gained.

“I’m glad, too, Da. Really,” Kieran said.  His father drew him into a hug, arms tight about his shoulders, and Kieran hugged his father back just as fiercely.

“I love you, son, so much. And I’m so proud of you,” Da said, voice tight and choked in the dusty room. The light filtered in through the windows, dust motes dancing there, and Kieran closed his eyes tight.

“I love you, too, Da,” Kieran echoed, tears in his voice. He could still remember being that little boy, that little boy who wanted to know who his father was, and finding out more than he bargained for. Then, like he was still a boy, Da ruffled his hair and kissed his temple. They held each other a moment longer before stepping back.

“Well, you ready?” Da asked, and Kieran nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak just yet. There were some things he could only understand with time, how much it had cost all his parents to go through what they had been through, and the courage it took to build a life, not just for themselves, but for him, and later for his sister, in the aftermath of everything. And thinking of Rhiannon, another question leapt to mind.

“Da… did you write a letter like this for Rhiannon?” Kieran asked. Da grinned.

“Of course I did, and she’ll get it when  _she’s_  getting married. But for now, it’s your day, and you’ve got a hell of a man waiting for you out there,” Da told him, undeniably smug and happy, and Kieran couldn’t help but let it buoy him up.

“I do, don’t I? Alright, let’s go show them what Tabris men can do,” Kieran said, clapping his father on the back and walking out of the room, out of the house that had been his home, one of the truer homes he had ever known, into his future.


End file.
